“Reiko, good job. Can you head to Egelea next?”
“Yes Father, without a problem.””
“That’s good, since I’ll be intervening at Egelia using the substitute puppet.”
“Understood, we’ll be heading there too.”
Tetrada’s battlefield had become paused, so Jin decided to next intervene at Egelia Kingdom’s capital Asunto.
Considering the distance from Hourai Island, by now Raptors from 6 to 10 and Falcons from 6 to 10 should have arrived.
Jin projected the picture from the substitute puppet that was on Raptor-10 onto a magical display.
＊ ＊ ＊
“[Storm Rush]!”
“Eek!”
Laila chanted [Storm Rush]. She frantically chanted it to defend against the enemy golems approaching her from the front.
The wind-attribute advanced level magic had enough strength to push the golems all the way back to the end of the hallway. In the aftermath her allies were also repelled but that was a trivial thing.
“*Wheeze*, *pant*”
“You did it, Laila! You can do it if you try!”
“Elder sister…”
Laila slightly blushed when she received praise from her excellent sister.
“Now, Your Majesty, Your Royal Highness, Your Highness, go downstairs at once!”
They couldn’t afford to waste the time Laila earned them, and the Imperial Guard Knights took the lead followed by the king, the queen, the prince, the golem Lotte, Lila, and finally Laila’s sister Airi as the rearguard.
Unfortunately they had no leeway to worry about the knights on their side who were beaten by the golems.
They somehow got down to the first floor hall where there was a crowd of wounded knights.
“Golems are coming from here too?”
Just where had they invaded from they wondered, as ten golems of the same type as the ones who attacked from the rooftop were rampaging in the hall.
“Your Majesty!”
Raising his voice to nearly a scream, the Minister of Magic Kelhidore yelled. Surrounding him were wrecked piles of Imperial Guard golems.
“The strength of those guys is unfathomable! It compares with the strength of that Reiko from the golem party!”
“What?”
“It can’t believe it, is that Jin guy pulling the strings behind the scenes?”
The one who spoke was the Minister of Defense Judol.
“Incorrect.”
A certain maid golem immediately refuted those words.
“Lotte?”
“Father wouldn’t build clumsy and unrefined golems like those. Those are the golems of the Unifilers who caused earlier uproar.”
Lotte declared.
“For Father’s honor.”
Lotte said and tossed the tray in her hand aiming at one of the golems who was approaching prince Ernest and the others.
It was the steel tray Jin had made.
Clang, with a harsh sound the tray embedded itself in the enemy golem’s chest. The golem stopped moving with its Magi Device destroyed.
Lotte quickly recovered her tray and caught the fist of another approaching golem with the tray.
This time there was a high-pitched noise and the tray broke. But, the enemy golem’s fist also broke.
“The tray bestowed to me by Father! How dare you!”
This time Lotte grabbed the steel mop she had been diligently carrying on her back.
The mop’s end became larger and heavier and she wielded it like a mace-type weapon.
The mop Lotte struck with flattened the enemy golem’s cranium.
The high-grade golem’s vision came from the eyes in its head. In other words, by destroying the head meant removing its sense of sight.
It wasn’t enough to destroy it, but the warped head no longer received enough visual information.
With her next blow, Lotte destroyed the enemy golem’s chest. With this two of the golems were destroyed. Eight remained.
“Lotte! Alright! We understand! Please protect His Majesty and His Highness!”
As you might expect, even the Minister of Defense Judol was compelled to accept that if Lotte was destroyed now they’d lose a considerable amount of combat potential. And so he judged they couldn’t afford to lose Lotte who was the royalty’s protector.
Receiving the orders, Lotte backed down, and in that brief gap.
“Your Highness! Watch out!”
Aimed at prince Ernest, the [Flame Bullet] spell came flying. The shots numbered around 50.
Once she noticed, Lotte swung her mop to intercept them. But the blunt weapon wasn’t something that could knock down all 50 of the [Flame Bullet]s.
About half of the [Flame Bullet]s were about to strike Prince Ernest.
“Your Highness!
Someone screamed. Prince Ernest resigned himself to being shot and close his eyes while covering his head.
But no matter how much time passed the shock didn’t come. Timidly, prince Ernest tried opening his eyes.
“!?”
He witnessed two pitch-black golems standing in front of him as if they were protecting him.
They were the SP Erica and Lobelia Jin had secretly sent to protect Prince Ernest.
“Y-you are?”
To the prince Ernest who reflexively asked, one of the pitch-black golems opened a part that seemed to be her mouth.
“We are those secretly protecting Your Highness.”
She said, and along with Lotte, they surrounded the royal family.
Because their affiliation was unknown some suspicion remained, but everyone was glad to have their combat potential augmented. Just when they thought so,
“Eek!”
Airi who had been guarding the stairs was blown away.
Three golems came down from upstairs.
Now the total of golems aiming for the royalty was 11.
“…”
The Minister of Defense Judol felt a chill down his spine.
Airi of the Imperial Guard magi knights had used up her Magic Energy, and although she appeared to be alive her injuries made her a non-combatant. And her younger sister Laila was still inexperienced.
The captain of the Imperial Guard knight troops Kelly was outside giving orders to defend against the attacks from the mysterious flying balloons, so only the vice captain Bruno and his three subordinates were here.
The Minister of Magic Kelhidore was capable in magic warfare, but he was entirely unsuited for hand-to-hand combat.
As for himself, his right arm that had been broken at Golem Party still hadn’t healed, making him unable to swing a sword properly.
“I have no other choice than to protect them with my life when the time time comes, do I?”
Just when Judol had prepared himself.
“Wh-what!?”
Another ten new golems showed up.
They were golems he had never seen before. They were almost perfectly human-shaped and of a light brown metallic color. They were holding swords.
“Is this where it ends…”
Judol touched the short sword on his waist and prepared to at least take one, maybe even two golems with him. However.
The ten golems that had appeared raised their swords and began fighting against the eleven golems in front of them.
“Are they friendly?”
The sharpness of the swords the light brown golems wielded was inconceivable; they easily cut through the spears two of the enemy golems were holding.
“Ooh?”
“How very…”
No matter how sharp and good a sword was, cutting through metal itself required a fair amount of power.
But in front of their eyes, as if slicing fruit with a knife, pieces of the enemy golems’ bodies were cut off and sent flying.
The enemy golems tried to hastily avoid the attacks, but the light brown golems were faster.
And with their might the enemy golems’ hands, legs, and then torsos were cut off. In the blink of an eye, the eleven enemy golems were rendered silent.
“Just, just how…”
Even the king was wide-eyed.
“Judol, Kelhidore. Might I ask if you were the ones who prepared these golems?”
There was no way they could answer the king’s question.
“N-no, the affiliation of these ones is unknown.”
But they had no choice but to.
However, even though he didn’t voice it, prince Ernest had a hunch he could guess who had built these light brown golems.
And when Lotte sensed their Magic Energy pattern,
(Thank you, Father.)
She sincerely thanked their manufacturer Jin in her heart.
Once the golems were taken care of, only the flying balloons remained.
Everyone there looked up at the sky. Then they noticed that hey, aren’t the flying balloons slowly coming down?
Two people were in each of the baskets hanging down from the balloons, and they appeared to be panicking.
“They’re coming down, but they seem to be panicking about something.”
The Minister of Magic Kelhidore said so under his breath while straining his eyes.
Then the five balloons all landed down inside Asunto’s inner castle.
Ten of the same light brown golems who defeated the enemy golems captured the crews. Now the total amount that had showed up was 20.
“Hey… when did they get in?”
The Minister of Defense Judol was surprised.
He couldn’t believe that the castle Asunto which had been said to have impregnable walls could be infiltrated this easily by these mystery golems. Even if those golems were friendly.
And then his surprise increased furthermore.
“Uwoaah, that, that’s a!”
A golem even taller than the ten-meter-high castle walls appeared and peered in the inner castle.